#NoTears

I would like to explain my hashtag.

At least once a month I will have a student say to me; "I needed to know that last week or last month." or "This would have saved me hours of work last week."

In December a lady said, "What we just did in 3 minutes took me 12 hours last month."

This saying first came to me from an experience with a student I had a few years ago.

I had just taught a concept called Fill Handle in Excel and noticed that a student was holding back the tears. I had just saved her hours and hours of work. She was grateful but she was also crying because of the number of hours she had spent doing it the long way. I wasn't sure if she wanted to hug me or hit me!

I wasn't sure what to say to her to make her feel better.

My goal is to teach as many people as I can time saving concepts that will help others not shed tears while working on a computer.

I am working on two more books: Top Ten Time-Saving Techniques: Excel version and a Word Version.

Quick Access Toolbar: Word

For many previous versions we have been able to edit the toolbars but not many knew that was possible and it was not an easy process.

The Office 2007 was the first to provide a Quick Access Toolbar in the top left-hand corner of the screen, as shown to the right. The toolbar is still available on the 2010 and 2013 versions.

The save, undo and redo are the default icons on the toolbar as shown on the left.

We can add the icons of the items we use most often.

This will save you time. Items that are in dialogue boxes [several clicks to get to it] are faster to get to if they are on the Quick Access Toolbar. 

Add an icon

I like to save paper so I always use Print Preview [or Print Preview & Print - depending on the version] so I add it to my Quick Access Toolbar.

To add it to the toolbar: 

Click on the arrow to the right of the Redo.

The following menu appears.

Note the check marks to the left of the words indicate which are currently on the toolbar.

Click on the Print Preview and Print

The drop down menu disappears and the icon now appears on the toolbar as the last icon.

If you click on the drop down again, you will see that the Print Preview and Print now has a check mark beside it indicating it is on the toolbar.

There are many other items I want to add which are not on the list.

Click on the arrow to view the menu. I need more items.

At the bottom of the list is More Commands... 

Click on More Commands...

The following screen appears:

You are in Word Options.

The far left column is the Word Options menu

The right section has two columns.

• The left column has the options we can add to the toolbar.
• The right column shows what is currently on the Quick Access Toolbar [QAT].

Currently, it is showing us the Popular Commands. That is the title at the top of the left column.

Scroll down the list using the scroll bar on the right side of the left column. Click on Pictures...  

Now click on the Add  button located between the two columns. Pictures is now added to the QAT.
Note: You will not see the Pictures icon immediately on the QAT. It will not appear until we click OK and the dialog box is gone.

Change the Order of the icons

We can now change the order of the items so they are organized how you want them!

Click on the Pictures in the right column [grey bar appears]

On the right are two arrows. Use the arrows to move each icon into the order you want the toolbar to appear.

Click the OK button in the bottom right hand corner of the Word Options window.

Fill: Days of the Week

Fill will save you hours of time. 

You will no longer have to type in the days of the week, or copy the days of the week from another spreadsheet. 

Enter Monday in the cell you want it to appear. 

Hit enter.

Click on the cell that has Monday in it as shown below.

In the bottom right corner of the selected cell [Monday above] there is a little box.

The little box is called the Fill Handle

Move your mouse over top of the box. The cursor becomes a big  + [plus sign].

Click on the box and drag the mouse to the right as shown below. 

Each day of the week is placed in a cell.  

Let go of the mouse when you get two and a half weeks.

Note: There is a problem with this list. It includes weekends. We don't want weekends.

Most businesses don't work weekends. We need to get rid of the Saturday and the Sunday. 

Click on the box in the bottom right corner of the Fill list [as shown in illustration above].
The menu below appears

Click on the radio button [circle] beside Fill Weekdays.
The Saturdays and Sundays disappear.
Make sure you do not start with Saturday or Sunday or this will not work.


Check out other Fill items that will save you more time.

Fill: Months
Fill: Numbers

Fill: Numbers

Fill will save you hours of time.

When I taught this one day last Spring, a lady had tears in her eyes.
Tears because she had typed individually over 4000 numbers into over 4000 individual cells. The ladies in her office listened to her speak each of those numbers out loud.

She had tears in her eyes also because she would no longer have to do these individually any more. I have just taught her how to save hours! I believe there were also tears for all the time she had spent typing the long way.

Type in the number 1 in a cell.
Press ENTER
Click on the cell which has the number 1 in it.

In the bottom right corner of the cell is a small box.
The box is called the Fill Handle

Move your mouse over it. The mouse indicator becomes a + [plus sign]

1. Click on the Fill Handle [little box in the right corner]. 
2. Click and hold the CTRL key
3. Drag your mouse down
4. When you reach the last number you need, let go of the mouse, then let go of the CTRL key. If you let go of the CTRL key first you will get a list of 1s.

If you do not hold down the CTRL key you will get a list of cells with 1's in them.

NOTE: You may fill the numbers along the row by dragging your mouse to the right instead of down.

What if you want 2, 4, 6, etc?

Type 2 in one cell

Type 4 in the next cell

Select both cells.

Click on the Fill Handle at the bottom of the cell with the 4 in it. The cell with the 2 in it doesn't have a fill handle.  

Drag the fill handle down several cells. 

By highlighting the 2 & 4 you are training the computer the pattern to follow in the following cells.

You can do 5, 10. Or 3, 6.

 Check out other Fill items that will save you more time.

Fill: Months

Fill: Months

Fill will save you hours of time. You no longer have to type in the months of the year, or copy the months from another spreadsheet. 

Enter January in the cell you want it to appear. 

Hit enter.

Click on the cell that has January in it as shown below. 

In the bottom right corner of the selected cell [January above] there is a little box.

The little box is called the Fill Handle

Move you mouse over top of the box. The cursor becomes a big  + [plus sign].

Click on the box and drag the mouse to the right as shown above. 

Each month is placed in a cell.  

Let go of the mouse when you get to December

Note: It will keep going to the next year if you continue to drag the mouse. 

Check out other Fill items that will save you more time.

AutoCorrect: Excel

Have you ever seen someone type "teh" in Word and as soon as they hit the Spacebar it corrects it to "the" That is called AutoCorrect.

Have you ever had problems with AutoCorrect on your phone?
I want to show you how AutoCorrect can be your friend and even spare you hours of time a week.

To start AutoCorrect:

Click on the File tab of the Ribbon.
[This pic is from Word 2013 but it is in the same spot in 2007 & 2010]
















You are now in Backstage mode.

Click on Options at the bottom of the left menu

The following window appears.

 Click on Proofing from the menu on the left
The following appears on the right


Click on the AutoCorrect button on the right near the top.
The following AutoCorrect window appears


The cursor is blinking in the box under the word Replace.
Type in your initials on the left.

Click TAB or click within the box under the word with:
Type in your name as you want it to appear in the right column.
As shown below:

Click Ok at the bottom.

If you were creating multiple shortcuts at the same time while here, then you would click Add.

Click on OK at the bottom at the bottom of the Word Options menu.

Now try it out!! Find a blank spot, type in your initials and press the space bar.  Viola! your name appears where your initials were.

Take a break because these will save you lots of time every single day.